her imagination, always kept within the limits of the purest
morality, her stern sense of justice, tempered by sympathy and
compassion, and the tenderness and sensibility that so often softened
her harsh and severe lineaments, commanded her respect and admiration.
Even her person, which was generally deemed ungainly and unattractive,
was invested with majesty and a certain grace in Helen's partial eyes.
She was old--but hers was the sublimity of age without its infirmity,
the hoariness of winter without its chillness. It seemed impossible to
associate with her the idea of dissolution. Yet there she lay, helpless
as an infant, with no more strength to resist the Almighty's will, than
a feather to hurl back the force of the whirlwind.

"You see that wheel, Helen," said she, recovering her usual calmness--"I
told you that I should bequeath it, as a legacy, to you. Don't despise
the homely gift. You see those brass bands, with grooves in them--just
screw them to the right as hard as you can--a little harder."

Helen screwed and twisted till her slender wrists ached, when the brass
suddenly parted, and a number of gold pieces rolled upon the floor.

"Pick them up, and put them back," said Miss Thusa, "and screw it up
again--all the joints will open in that way. The wood is hollowed out
and filled with gold, which I bequeath to you. My will is in there, too,
made by the lawyers where I found the money. You remember when that
advertisement was put in the papers, and I went on that journey, part
of the way with you. Well, I must tell you the shortest way, though it's
a long story. It was written by a lady, on her death-bed, a widow lady,
who had no children, and a large property of her own. You don't remember
my brother, but your father does. He was a hater of the world, and
almost made me one. Well, it seemed he had a cause for his misanthropy
which I never knew of, for when he was a young man he went away from
home, and we didn't hear from him for years. When he came back, he was
sad and sickly, and wanted to get into some little quiet place, where
nobody would molest him. Then it was we came to this little cabin, where
he died, in this very room, and this very bed, too."

Miss Thusa paused, and the room and the bed seemed all at once clothed
with supernatural solemnity, by the sad consecration of death. Death had
been there--death was waiting there.

"Oh! Miss Thusa, you are faint and weary. Do stop and rest, I pray you,